tender heart to involve her in what might yet snatch all away.
Where was the win Cee Cee so desperately needed to bolster her own flagging spirit?
The weight of Giles St. Clair’s big hand upon her shoulder startled her back from the edge. A quick squeeze. No words necessary.
He’d been waiting at her desk when she’d finished with Atcliff, there to shuttle her from the responsibilities of her job to the obligations of her conscience, then to take her home, ready to provide anything she needed if asked. Until she did, he remained a quiet, unobtrusive bulwark, ready to support or carry heavy things . . . like her conscience.
Apparently, he believed that time was now.
“She’d want you to finish this.”
Denial stiffened her spine. “How do you know what she’d want?”
A small chuckle. “Because I’ve been around strong, righteous women all my life, and the last thing any of them would want is for a wrong thing to go unpunished. And what these creatures are doing is a very wrong thing. If anyone has a chance of stopping them, it’s you, Charlotte.”
“Max doesn’t agree.”
He snorted at the tartness of her tone. “Yes, he does. He just can’t make himself say it yet. We’re big, dumb animals, Detective, who can take on the villains of the world with an attitude and a toothpick to protect those we love. He just wants you to know that. Sometimes strong, righteous women give us the idea that they don’t need us, that we’re in the way, or that we think they’re not every bit as smart and capable as we are. We know you are, Charlotte, but that doesn’t make us any less inclined to act the hero on your behalf. And I won’t mind a’tall if you happen to share that piece of news with a certain redhead I know.”
Cee Cee turned away from the window to thump her palm against his broad chest. “You’re gonna make a damn fine attorney, Giles.”
“Hopefully before I’m retirement age.”
Though he’d worked hard to purge the accent from his voice, his Cajun heritage claimed Giles St. Clair’s soul. He made a quick sign of the cross, murmuring, “Dieu bénisse,” as he touched fingertips to the glass. Falling in step as her long strides carried her down the hallway, he asked, “Where to?”
She’d started to say “work,” which would have kindled a true argument when her phone pinged.
– – –
The last thing Max expected was a text from Mary Kate Malone with an invitation to dinner.
The first time he’d seen Charlotte’s best friend, she and his wife had been teens, cruelly abducted by order of Jimmy Legere to put pressure on Cee Cee’s cop father not to testify. Having finished a job for Jimmy on the docks, Max had come upon them by accident, two terrified girls in the hands of rough, uncaring men who’d ignored the order not to molest them. They’d done far worse than that. Max had tried to go about his business, as they were none of his, but the pleading blue eyes of one and the fierce bold snarl of the other made demands upon a soul he’d thought lost in the swamps where his mother had died.
By the time his conscience got the best of him and he returned to put a bloody end to the miscreants, both girls had lost their innocence and nearly their lives. For years, he’d watched from a distance as they struggled to put that ugliness behind them. Neither could. His fascination with the detective’s fierce daughter was rivaled by a need to earn forgiveness from the bubbly cheerleader turned quiet, avenging nun.
Together, he and Mary Kate, now Sister Catherine, had come to the aid of women and children victimized by violence—she, offering a safe place to stay and sustenance for body and soul, and he, a harsh judgment ending the threat of those who’d terrorized them. Few things had touched upon the battered heart of the attack dog Legere had crafted him into, but the vulnerability of those unable to protect themselves was one of them. Charlotte Caissie was the other.
Mary Kate and Charlotte, two sides of a once shiny coin tarnished by evil intent, both reborn with very different convictions. Mary Kate provided, Charlotte punished in an effort to rid themselves of their relentless demons. Works still in progress he’d do everything in his power to see to fruition.
Even if it meant sitting across the dinner table from Philo Tibideaux.